瓦尔登湖翻译之“我的居所，我的生活目标”

译文：

我的居所，我的生活目标

到生命的某个节点，我们通常会考虑合适的安家地址。迄今为止，我考察了离我家不到十二里地的村子。幻想着一口气买下了所有的农场，因为都拿下了，也就对它们的价值了然于胸了。我走进每个农场主的农场，品偿了他们的野生苹果，我们聊了农牧业，按他提出的价格买下农场，再以我心目中的定价抵押给他；甚至把价钱定得高一些——一切都搞定了，只是没有契约——就把他的话拿来当契约，反正我素常爱闲聊——我在开垦农场的同时，某种程度上，也跟他建立了感情，我想，等我聊够了就离开，让他继续种下去。这种经历让朋友们把我当在了某种房地产经销商。不管我在哪里，总能活下去，相应地，那里的风景也会因我而熠熠生辉。何谓房子？不过是拉丁文中的sedes,一个休息的地方——如果是一个乡村宅第就更好了。我发现挺多房屋的选址，似乎不大可能快速发展，有人会觉得离村庄太远了，以我的角度看，是村庄离它太远了，那好，我说，我会住在那里；而且我真的住下来了，度过了一个小时，一个夏天和一个冬天；看我是怎么消磨时光的，寒冬匆匆滑过，春天就来了。将来要来这里的居民，无论他们把房了建在什么位置，都是抢手地。只要一个下午的时间，就可以辟出果园，林地和牧场，决定门前留下哪些优质的橡树和松树，这样一来，无论从哪个角度，每一株枯树看起来都很漂亮；然后就休耕了，也许，人也可以把一部分事情放下罢。

我的思绪万端，即便我被几处农场拒绝——那我求之不得——我的手指从没让现实占有烫伤过。我最接近现实占有的一次是买下了霍尔维尔那处地，接着开始选种，收集用来制作手推独轮车的材料，将来方便装运；还没等业主把契约交给我，他的妻子——每位男子都有这样的妻子——改变了主意，不想卖了，他付给我十美元违约金。当时，说真的，我只有十美分，假如我有十美分，或者有一个农场，或者有十美元，或者这些都有，这已经超过了我的运算能力，所以，我退了他的十美元，也退给了他地，这事儿我做得很够意思，更确切地说，够大方，我以买价又卖给了他，而且，他也不富裕，还送给他十美元。我的十美分，我的种子，做手推车的材料都还在。我发现，迄今为止，我还是一个富人，我的财产没有受到任何损失。但是我收获了美景，在风景方面，不需要一辆手推车，我每年都可以欣赏到。

“我是眺望全景的皇帝，

我的权力毋庸置疑”

我经常看到一位诗人欣赏了农场里最美的风景后就离开了，粗野的农民却认为他只是摘了几颗野生苹果而已。 正所谓，这里是诗人笔下的远方，却是穷人心中的凄凉。最让人称羡的影形篱笆，把农场围了起来，挤它的奶，擢取油脂，获取了奶油，给农场主留下了脱脂奶。

霍尔维尔农场真正吸引我的是，它离乡村有两英里地，跟最近的邻居也有半英里地，一块大田把它与公路隔开了，是个绝佳的隐修之地；它以一条河为界，农场主说，

春天河上升起大雾，使其免受霜冻，这对我来说毫无意义，房子和谷仓上蒙着了着灰色，破烂不堪，东倒西歪的篱芭仿佛在我和上一个主人之间隔了多么久远的岁月；苹果被厚厚的苔藓覆盖着，早已是外强中干，还被兔子啃咬过，由此可知，我的邻居是什么样；综上所述，我对它最早的回忆是在那条河里逆流而上时，房子隐蔽在茂密的红色枫树林里，透过树林，依希听到家犬在叫。我急着要把它买下来，等不及业主把

那些石块搬走，把那些中空的苹果树砍倒，挖掉钻出农场地面的小桦树，简言之，等不及业主进一步收拾停当。为了享受到这些优点，我准备把它扛起来，就像阿特拉斯一样，把整个世界都扛到我的肩上——我从没听说过他得到过什么回报——做所有这些事情没有其他动机和借口，只等我给他把钱款付清，不受任何干扰地拥有霍尔维乡间小屋；因为我一直知道，假如我任其自由发展，这块地会产出大量我想要的谷物。但结果是我前文提到的那样子。

总之，就农场的规模而言，我所能说的只是——我一直栽培着一个花园——我把种子都准备好了。很多人以为种子也会与时俱进。我不否认时间能区分好坏；最后我会下种的，我想大概不会让我失望的。不过，我要彻底跟我的同胞们说清楚，要尽量长久地活得自由洒脱一些。你们把自己投入农场与投入监狱几乎无不同。

老卡托，它的《乡村篇》是我的“栽培者，”里面这样写道——我见过的唯一译本把以下这段话译得简直狗屁不通——“在你想买下一个农场的时候，多考虑考虑，别光急着买；先去农场转转不会让你少块肉，也别以为绕农场转一圈就够了。如果农场真的很不错的话，那么你去的次数越多，就会越喜欢它。”我想，我是不会急着买下来，我能活多久就绕它转多久，一开始就全心全意扑在农场上，没准最后获得的快乐会更多一些。现在是我尝试的第二阶段，我打算花时间把这件事情写得更详尽一些，为了方便起见，我把这两年来的体验合而为一来写。我说过，我不会写一首闷闷不乐的颂诗，但是我会像一只破晓的晨鸡一样，站在栖木上引吭高歌，唯愿能叫醒我的邻居们。在我初次住进我的林中小屋时，就白天晚上都在那里度过了，碰巧那天是独立日，即1845年7月4日，我的房子还不足以御寒，凑合挡挡风雨还行，既没有抹灰，也没有砌烟囱，墙面是饱经风霜的粗木板，还有不少宽缝，这种情况条件下，晚上就凉叟叟的。经劈削过的白色立柱以及刚刨平的门和窗框使小屋显得既干净又通风，尤其在早晨，木材都吸足了露水，我就浮想联翩，在中午的时候，莫非从木材上会渗出一些甜丝丝的树胶来。在我的想象中，屋子里一整天都保留着这种氛围，这让我想起一年前在山上拜访过的一间小屋。那是一间通风良好，又没有抹过水泥灰的小木屋，适合接待一位云游四海的神仙，那里拖着长裙的仙女也住得了。从我的屋顶吹过的风，有如横扫山脊的风一样，拨弄出时断时续的旋律，或许是从天上掉落的人间乐曲。清晨的风呼呼地刮，永不停歇，诗篇的创造从不间断；奥林匹斯山各处都有，聆听的耳朵却寥寥。

过去，除了小船，我拥有的唯一的房子就是一顶帐篷，以前夏日出游的时候，我偶尔会用到，如今已经卷好放在了阁楼上；但是小船，几经转手，早已消失在时间的河流里了。如今有了这个坚实的小屋，我定居在这世间也算有了一些进步。这间小屋，虽说有些单薄，却有一种晶莹剔透的东西围绕着我，而且跟我这个营造师息息相通。它还使人联想到一幅素描轮廓图。我不必到屋外呼吸新鲜空气，因为屋里的空气没有失去一点新鲜度。我坐在门后跟在屋里并无差别，甚至在阴雨天气也一样。哈利梵萨说：“居无鸟犹如食无味。”我的住所并不是那样，因为我发现自己突然与鸟儿比邻而居；并不是把一只鸟关在笼子里，而是把我自己关在屋里与鸟儿为伴。我不仅跟常来花园和果园的鸟儿近距离接触，还有森林里的那些更小更有野趣的鸟儿——有画眉、鸫鸟、红茑、田雀，三声夜莺，以及许多别的鸟儿，它们从来没有，或是罕有对村民们唱过什么小夜曲。

我住在一个小湖边上，离康科德村以南约一英里半，地势比它稍高一些，位于它和林肯之间的一片大树林里，往南两英里地，是我们仅有的闻名遐迩的胜地——康科德战场；我这儿在森林里来说地势比较低，半英里外的湖岸，同别的地方一样，都被树林掩盖着，却是我看得最远的地平线。在头一个星期，我不管什么时候凝望小湖，它给我的印象就是一个山中小湖，高踞在山的一侧，湖的底部高于其他湖的湖面，太阳冉冉升起的时候，我看见它的每一处都退去蒙蒙的夜雾，渐渐地，展现出柔软的波纹或者平静如镜的湖面，这时的雾气，像幽灵似的，悄无声息地四处逃散，消失在树林里，如同夜间集会正在散场一样。随后，很多露珠悬挂在树树上，如同挂在山的四周一样，天都比往常还要亮了，迟迟不肯退去。

八月里，和风细雨停歇时，小湖成了我最珍贵的邻居，这时候，空气和湖水一片寂静，但是天空却乌云密布，下午才过了一半，就已进入了夜晚的宁静，画眉鸟在周围啾啾地叫着，隔岸也隐约听得到。小湖这时的宁静，没有哪个时候可比得上了；小湖上空清朗的氛围很淡，被乌云蒙着一层黑雾，水中浮光闪闪，倒影绰绰，好似人间仙境，更加值得珍视。附近的一个小山头上的树木最近被砍掉了，举目向南岸眺望，真是一片宜人的景色，山与山之间的宽阔凹陷处便是湖岸所在，两座小山坡相对向下倾斜，使人联想到，仿佛有一条溪流穿过树木茂密的峡谷，朝那个方向倾泻而下，但是溪流并不存在。就这样，我从近处那碧绿的小山之间和山头之上，眺望地平线上那些泛着蓝色的远山。真的，我踮起脚尖，能看见西北方向那些更蓝更遥远的山脉顶峰，那些蓝是浑然天成的蓝，还能看见村庄的一隅。但是换个方向，还是从这个位置，我就什么都看不见，因为周围全是树木。你住处周围有水的话，那就再好不过了，因为水的浮力，地球就浮动起来了。哪怕有一个小小的水井，也是好的，在看向井里的时候，地球不是大陆的样子，而成了海岛。这一发现如同冷却黄油一样重要。在我从这个山顶眺望湖对岸的萨德伯里草地时，分明看见它在发大水期间升高了，也许是云雾中蒸腾翻滚的峡谷中出现了海市蜃楼吧，就像水池里的一枚硬币一样，小湖边上的地面似乎出现了一层薄薄的的硬壳，由这片小小的涧水将其分离并且浮起来，我这才如梦方醒，原来我住在干地上。

尽管我门前的视野虽窄，我一点都不觉得憋屈。我的想象可别有一番天地。长满低矮的橡树的高地，从小湖对岸升起，一直延伸到西面的大草原和鞑靼的荒野。给所有流浪的人们提供了广阔的天地。“世上再也没有比可以自由地欣赏广阔的地平线的人们更快乐的了。”——在达摩达拉的牛羊需要更大的新牧场时，他这样说过。时间和地点都在变，我住的离宇宙中最吸引我的那些区域、那些历史时代更近了。我住的地方跟天文学家们夜间观测的许多区域一样远。我们总是遐想，天体的某个遥远而神秘的角落，仙后座后方，远离喧嚣与纷扰，有一些美丽迷人的地方。我发现，实际上自己的房子就座落在这样一个宇宙区，与世隔绝，永远新鲜而神圣。如果说住得靠近昴星团或者毕星团、靠近牵牛星或天鹰星很舒适的话，那么我就是住在这种地方，或者远离我早已抛在后面的尘世喧嚣，有如一缕微光闪烁不定，照着离我最近的邻居，且邻居只能在没有月亮的晚上才能看得到这缕微光。这样的天地一隅，正是我的所在；

————

世上有过一个牧羊人，

他的思想就像高山那样。

他在羊上的一群羊，

时时刻刻把他来喂养。

如果牧羊人的羊群总是游荡在比他的思想还要高的牧场上，那么，我们对这个牧牧人的生活作何感想呢？

每天清晨都是一份令人愉快的邀请书，让我的生活同大自然一样简朴，也许我可以说，跟大自然本身一样纯真。我一直崇拜曙光女神奥罗拉，论虔诚不逊于希腊人。我早早起来去湖里沐浴；这是一种宗教行为，也是这做得最好的一件事情。据说，商汤王的浴盆上刻着这样一行字：“苟日新，日日新，又日新。”我明白其中的意思。清晨带来了英雄的时代。黎明时分，我打开窗户，坐在门口，一只蚊子在我的屋里看不到的地方飞来飞去，嗡嗡嗡，就像那颂扬美名的小号吹响了荷马的安魂曲一样，我很受感动;其本身是流行的《伊利亚特》和《奥德赛》，歌唱着它的怒火，四处飘荡，有种气凌宇宙的情怀；总是宣扬宇宙的无穷活力与生生不息。早晨在一天当中最珍贵了，是起床的时间。几乎没有人在早晨打瞌睡；不管白天还是夜晚，昏昏欲睡的我们，至少有一小时是清醒的。如果有那么一天，我们不是由我们的保护神唤醒的，而是由某个呆板的仆人有胳壁肘捅醒的，如果我们不是由我们的新生力量和内心的渴望，以及天籁之音和空中的芬芳唤醒的——我们醒来的生活比睡前的生活更美好，而是由工厂的上班闹铃吵醒的，那么，也没有多少期盼可言；倒是黑夜成功证明了它比白天好很多。如果一个人不相信每天都有一个他还没有亵渎过的更早更神圣的清晨，那他对生活是绝望的，他走的是一条通向黑暗的下坡路。部分感观生活停下以后，人的灵魂，更确切地说，是人的器官，每天都会注入新的活力，且他的守护神会一再尝试它能创造什么样的贵族生活。我敢说，一切令人难戽的事都是在清晨时间的氛围里发生的。《吠陀经》里说：“一切智慧醒于晨。”诗歌与智慧，最文明最难忘的人类行为，都来源于这样一个时刻。一切像门农的诗人与英雄，都是曙光女神奥罗拉的孩子，他们在日出的时候弹奏美妙的音乐。对于那些思维与太阳同步的人来说，他们的思维是富有弹性充满活力的，一天就是持久的早晨。这与时间毫无关系，与人的劳动和态度也没有关系。早晨就是在我醒来时，心里就有了黎明。道德改造是力求摆脱疲倦。如果人类不用睡觉的话，为何一天只有那么点时间？他们都是精明人。要不是他们没有克服困倦的话，还会做一些事情的。有数百万人非常清醒地从事体力劳动；但只有百分之一非常清醒地从事有效地脑力劳动，只有一亿分之一的人过着富有诗意的美好生活。醒着即活着。我还尚未见过一个十分清醒的人。如果见到了，我该如何正视他呢？

我们必须学会让自己苏醒，并保持清醒，不靠闹钟的帮助，要靠内心对黎明的渴望醒来，就算在我们酣睡之际，黎明也不会抛弃我们。人们通过有意识的努力，毫无疑问，人们有能力提高自己的生活质量，我没有看到比这更鼓舞人心的事了。画一幅精美的图画，或做一个雕像，或者美化几个物件，都是了不起的事情；不过，能通过我们的所看见的，道德上可做的事当中勾勒出美好的氛围和环境，那就更加称得称道了。能影响当今的上流人士，那是艺术的最高境界。每个人都应该让自己的生活，乃至于它的细节，在他最庄严最紧急的关头都值得深思。如果我们拒绝，或者用尽了我们得到微不足道的信息，那么，神谕会清清楚楚地告诉我们如何把事情做好。

我住在森林里的原因是，我希望生活过得有目的性，只需面对生活的基本现实即可，看看我能不能学会生活教给我的东西，要不然，在我临终前才发现我这一生白活了。我不希望过那种不能称之为生活的生活，生活是那么珍贵；除非必要，我也不希望过那种听之任之的生活。我想深入地生活，吸取生活中的全部精髓，像斯巴达人一样，玩强地生活，摒弃一切算不上生活的东西，开辟一大片土地，精心地耕耘，让生活处于区区一隅，把生活标准降到最低，且，如果证明这种生活是卑贱的，那么，就要完全弄明白的卑贱意义何在，随后昭告天下；如果这么做是崇高的，那么就通过亲身经历来了解它，在我下一次远足时就能给出一个真实的描述。因为在我看来，大部分人都处在对生活的不确定性当中，在不清楚它是属于魔鬼还是上帝的情况下，就草草地下了结论，认为人生的主要目的是“永远崇拜上帝，热爱上帝。”

可是我们仍然生活得很卑贱，如同蚂蚁一样；尽管古代寓言告诉我们，我们早已变成了人类；我们好像侏儒俾格人一样在跟天鹤打仗；那真是错上加错，越抹越黑了。我们最优美的德行这时却变成了多余的本可避免的痛苦。我们的生活已被锁碎消耗掉了。一个诚实的人除了数自己的十根手指头外，几乎不需要数更多的数字，或者说，在极端的情况下，最多再加上他的十个脚趾头，其余的归在一起算就可以了。

简化！简化！再简化!我说，把你的事务简化为两三件，而不是一百件或一千件；不必到一百万，数到一半就行了，在你的大拇指甲盖上记帐即可，在这惊涛骇浪的文明生活的大海中，一个人要想生存，乌云密布、暴风骤雨、险滩流沙等一千零一件事都要考虑到，他通过船位推算，就不会沉入海底，也不会抵达港口。一个成功的人，必定是个了不起的精明人。简化再简化。用不着一日三餐，如果有必要，一餐就够了；用不着上一百道菜，五道就够了；其他事情按比例减掉。我们的生活犹如德意志联邦一样，由多个联邦州组成，德国的边界永远在变动，即使一位德国人说不出它任一时刻的边界在哪里。顺便说一名，这个国家所谓的内部改进，也是浅显的表面功夫，因为它是那么难以撑控的庞然大物，由于它里面填满了附属单位，从而落入了自己设置的陷阱，因为欠缺计算以及崇高的目标，都毁在了奢侈跟挥霍上，正如这片土地上的上百万家庭一样，实行严格的经济措施是拯救他们的唯一办法，过上一种比斯巴达人还要极简的生活，同时提振其意志。不然生活就太过放荡了。人们肯定地认为，无论他们做到做不到，国家都必须有商业，出口的冰块，通过电报通话，以及每小时行驶三十英里；至于我们应该生活得像狒狒一样还是像人一样，反而吃不准。如果我们不打造枕木，锻造钢轨，没日没夜地工作，只是为了打造生活从而得以改善生活，那么有谁会来修筑铁路呢？如果铁路没有修好，我们又如何及时赶到天堂？如果我们呆在家里，只关心自己的事物，又有谁要修铁路呢？你有没有想过铁轨下面的那些枕木是什么？每一根枕木就是一个人，一个爱尔兰人，或者一个美国佬。铁轨就铺在这些人身上，然后在其身上埋上沙子，列车平稳地在上面开过。我向你保证，他们睡得很沉。每隔几年，就有一批新的枕木就会倒下，让列车在上面经过；因此，如果一些人开开心心地乘列车经过铁轨，那么，那些被压在下面的人就很不幸了。他们从一个正在梦游的人——一根错位而多余的枕木——身上经过之时，就会把他惊醒，他们就会马上让列车停下，并且大声嚷嚷，仿佛是在抗议似的。在得知每五公里就有一帮把枕木铺平的工人时，我很高兴，因为，这说明一种现象：这些枕木可能在某一时刻会再次醒来。

我们为什么要过得如此匆忙，又浪费生命呢？我们不等感到饥饿，就决定要饿死。常言道：及时缝一针，就省得日后缝九针，可是，这些人就为了明天省得缝九针，今天缝了一千针。至于这种做法，我们得不到任何效果。我们得了圣·维特斯的狂舞病，我们的头脑就不可能静下来。康科德郊区的农场上几乎没有一个男子，尽管他今天早上多次找借口表示忙得不可开交，没有一个男孩子，也没有一个妇女，我敢肯定，如果我假装报火警，而只拉几下教堂的钟绳（那里没有设置钟声），人们会寻着声音纷纷跑来，主要不是从大火中挽救财物的，而是，如果我们承认事实的话，多数是来看火势的——因为火已经着起来了，而且大家都知道那火不是自己放的——或者来看火是怎样被扑灭的，如果不费什么劲的话，就帮忙搭把手。是的，哪怕是教堂本身着了火，也是如此这般。一个人午饭后，刚睡半小时，醒来抬头就问：“有什么消息没有？”仿佛别人都是给他站岗放哨似的。一些人建议每半小时就把他叫醒一次，毫无疑问，没有别的目的；稍后，只要肯付费，他们就会把自己的梦给描述一下。睡上一晚之后，新闻如同早餐一般不可或缺。“求求你，告诉我这个地球上某个地方某个人身上的新闻，好吗？”——他一边喝咖啡吃面包卷，一边看报纸，得知这天早上瓦奇托河上，一个男子的眼睛被挖掉了；却从没想过此刻他自己就生活在深不见底的巨大黑洞里，而且一只眼睛已经瞎掉了。

就我自己来说，就算没有邮局，我也无所谓。我认为，只有极少重要的信息需要邮局来传递。严格来说，我最多只收到过一两封值得邮递的信件——几年前我就说过这个话。一便士邮资制度往往是你一本正经地给一个人一便士，想要得到他的想法，结果往往得到的是一个笑话。我确信，我从没在报纸上读到过任何让我记忆深刻的信息。如果我们读到一个人被抢劫了，被谋*了，或意外死亡了，一所房子着火了，一条船沉淹了，一艘轮船爆炸了，或一头母牛跑到西部铁轨上被撞死了，一只疯狗被*掉了，或入冬以来出现了一群蚱蜢——我们就无需再读下去了。只读一条就够了。如果你对这种法则有所了解的话，干嘛还要去管这许许多多的实例及其应用呢？对一位哲学家而言，所有称之为消息的东西，都是闲扯，编辑和阅读这些消息的人都是喝茶闲聊的大妈们。却有很多人喜欢这种闲扯。几天前，我听说有一群人冲进一家报馆打听最新的外国消息，导致报馆的好几块大玻璃窗都被挤碎了——我认真捉摸过那条消息，一个脑筋活泛点的人可能十二个月，或者是十二年前就准确无误地把它写好了。比方说西班牙，你只要知道如何时不时地，恰如其分地把唐·彼德罗，塞维利亚和格拉纳达这些字眼写进去就行了。——自我读报以来，这些名字的变动微乎其微——如果没有别的娱乐事件可供报道，那就扯一扯斗牛吧，写信也是这么真实，如同报纸上这个标题下面简洁明了的报道一样，把西班牙的现状和衰败现象向我们做了详尽的说明：至于英国呢，来自那个地方的最新要闻几乎还是1964年的那场革命；如果你了解英国每年平均产量的历史，那你就不需要关注它了，除非你是为了赚大钱而做的投机生意。

即例不读报纸也能判断出：国外没什么最新新闻，就连法国革命也不例外。

何谓新闻！要知道永垂不朽的事情那才是最重要的，“蘧伯玉使人于孔子，孔子与之坐而问焉。曰：夫子何为？对曰：夫子欲寡其过，而未能也。使者出。子曰：使乎，使乎。”周末是疲惫的农夫们休息的日子——因为星期是忙碌了一周的结尾，不是新的一周崭新而美好的开始——传教士向他们的耳朵里灌输的不是冗长乏味的布道，而是如惊雷般大吼：停下！停下！为什么看上去很快，而实际上慢得要死呢？

伪善和谬见被推崇为最健全的真理，现实却成了虚幻。如果人们都尊重现实，不为虚幻所欺，那么，我们的生活与我们了解的事情相比，犹如童话故事，简直是“天方夜谭”。如果我们尊重不可避免的事情以及合理存在的事情，那么音乐和诗歌会在街头再次回响。只要我们从容而睿智，就会看出只有伟大和有价值的事物才能永久而绝对地存在，微小的恐惧和乐趣只不过是现实的影子而已。现实总让人兴奋和赞叹。人们闭目酣睡之际，任凭各种假象所欺骗，到处践行他们的日常生活的例行习惯，但也只是建立在纯粹虚幻的基础之上。玩过家家游戏的儿童，都比成年人更加清晰地分辩真活的真正法则与关系，虚度一生的成年人还自认为比儿童更聪明，因为他们有过失败的经验。我在一本印度的书里读到：“国王有个儿子，一出生就被送出城外，由一位樵夫抚养长大，在粗野的环境下长大成人，并自认为是野蛮人，其父亲的一位臣子发现了他，并把真相告诉了他，他摒弃了之前对自己出生的错误观念，因为他知道了自己是一个王子。”这位印度哲学家接下去说：“这个人由于自己所处的环境的缘故，他对自己的身份产生了误解，直到一位圣洁的老师告诉他真相，他才知道自己原来是婆罗门。”我发现，新英格兰的人民过生跟我们一样的生活，因为我们还没有看透事情的表象。我们认为，事情的表象是浅显的。如果一个人走过小镇，看到的只有现实，那么，你认为，米尔德姆街通向何处？如果这个人向我们描述了他在小镇看到的现实，那我们就找不到他描述的地方。看那礼拜堂，或县府大楼，监狱，或一家商店或一所住宅，先说一说其真实的样子后，再真切地盯着看一看。在你的描述下它们都是七零八碎的样子。人们尊重遥远的真理，在星系之外，在遥远的星辰后面，在亚当之前，最后那个人之后。永恒中确实存在真理和崇高。但所有这些时间，地点和事件，都是此时此地。上帝本身在当下达到极致，不会随着时代的消逝而更神圣。我们只有不断地融入和投身于围绕我们的现实，才能懂得什么是崇高，什么是高贵。宇宙始终在顺应我们的观念。不管我们走得快还是走得慢，路已经为我们铺好了，让我们毕生怀有这种设想吧。诗人或艺术家尚未有过如此崇高的设想，至少他的一些子孙后代会将其实现。

让我们像大自然一样从容地过一天，别让落在轨道上的坚果壳以及蚊子的翅膀干扰到。天一亮就起床，或者享用早餐，不急不徐不焦不燥；让人来人往，让钟声响起，让孩子们啼哭——下决心要好好过日子。我们为何要认输，为何要随波逐流？我们不要因狼吞虎咽，暴饮暴食把自己的肠胃搞坏，所谓的正餐，犹如浅滩，有着可怕的激流和漩涡。闯过这一险关，你就安全了，因为剩下的路都是下坡路了。带着紧绷的神精，借助黎明的活力，朝着另一个方向扬帆起航，就像尤利西斯一样，把自己绑在桅杆上。如果火车拉响汽笛，就让它响吧，响到它累了乏了，声音变得沙哑了。如果钟声响起，我们为什么要奔跑？我们将会琢磨其声音像哪个类型的音乐。我们让自己安心工作，双脚蹚过渗透到全球的淤泥浊水，即舆论，偏见，传统，谬见和表象，穿过巴黎、伦敦、纽约、波士顿、康科德、教堂、国家、诗歌、哲学与宗教，最后来到坚如磐石的底部，我们称之为现实。然后说，现实就在这儿，没错；找一个支点，在山洪、冰霜与火焰之下，开始筑一道墙或建一个国家，或安全起见，坚起一根灯柱，或者支起一台测量仪，不是尼罗河水位测量仪，而是现实测量仪，以后的时代也许知道虚假与表象的水日复一日的积聚下来，到底有多深。如果你直立着面对事实，就会看到事实的两面都闪烁着阳光，就像波斯人腰里挎着的弯刀，感觉它的利刃正剖开你的心脏和骨髓，因此你会快乐地了结自己的人生。生也好死也罢，我们渴求的只有现实。如果我们真的倒下，就让我们听听喉咙里的咽气声，感受四肢的寒冷吧。如果我们还活着，那我们就去忙自己的事吧。

时间只是供我垂钓的小溪。我喝着小溪水，但在我喝水的时候就看见含沙的底部，发现溪水浅得很。细细的溪水悄悄流走，而永恒还在。我会喝到更深处；在空中钓鱼，整个底部都是鹅卵石似的星星。我连“一”都数不出来。我不认识字母表里的第一个字母。我常常惋惜自己不如刚出生的时候聪明。智力是一把利刃，它能剖开重重迷雾，洞察万物的奥秘。我不希望自己的双手超出必要的范围而忙乱。我的双手双脚印射出我的头脑。我觉得自己所有最佳的才能都凝聚于此。我的本能告诉我，我的头脑是一个需要挖掘的器官，犹如某些动物利用自己的鼻子和前爪打洞一样，有了头脑我就可以开辟自己的道路，穿过这些小山。我认为，最丰富的矿藏就在这附近；因此，用占卜丈和升腾的雾气，我断定，我可以在这儿开始挖矿。

原文：

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it -- took everything but a deed of it -- took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk -- cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? -- better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance , for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several farms -- the refusal was all I wanted -- but I never got my fingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife -- every man has such a wife -- changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty. But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With respect to landscapes,

"I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute."

I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk.

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its complete retirement, being, about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, nawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders -- I never heard what compensation he received for that -- and do all those things which had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and be unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all the while that it would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted, if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said.

All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale -- I have always cultivated a garden -- was, that I had had my seeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.

Old Cato, whose "De Re Rustica" is my "Cultivator," says -- and the only translation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage -- "When you think of getting a farm turn it thus in your mind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it enough to go round it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good." I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the more at last.

The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at length, for convenience putting the experience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.

The only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a boat, was a tent, which I used occasionally when making excursions in the summer, and this is still rolled up in my garret; but the boat, after passing from hand to hand, has gone down the stream of time. With this more substantial shelter about me, I had made some progress toward settling in the world. This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystal lization around me, and reacted on the builder. It was suggestive somewhat as a picture in outlines. I did not need to go outdoors to take the air, for the atmosphere within had lost none of its freshness. It was not so much within doors as behind a door where I sat, even in the rainiest weather. The Harivansa says, "An abode without birds is like a meat without seasoning." Such was not my abode, for I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them. I was not only nearer to some of those which commonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those smaller and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, serenade a villager -- the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field sparrow, the whip-poor-will, and many others.

I was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of the village of Concord and somewhat higher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two miles south of that our only field known to fame, Concord Battle Ground; but I was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like the rest, covered with wood, was my most distant horizon. For the first week, whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above the surface of other lakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of mist, and here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were stealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. The very dew seemed to hang upon the trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of mountains.

This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, and the wood thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being, shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important. From a hill-top near by, where the wood had been recently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the northwest, those true-blue coins from heaven's own mint, and also of some portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond the woods which surrounded me. It is well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. One value even of the smallest well is, that when you look into it you see that earth is not continent but insular. This is as important as that it keeps butter cool. When I looked across the pond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood I distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley, like a coin in a basin, all the earth beyond the pond appeared like a thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of intervening water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt was but dry land.

Though the view from my door was still more contracted, I did not feel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture enough for my imagination. The low shrub oak plateau to which the opposite shore arose stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the steppes of Tartary, affording ample room for all the roving families of men. "There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon" -- said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger pastures.

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life which I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such as that part of creation where I had squatted;

"There was a shepherd that did live,

And held his thoughts as high

As were the mounts whereon his flocks

Did hourly feed him by."

What should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tchingthang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air -- to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, "All intelligences awake with the morning." Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when they run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception. I am glad to know that it takes a gang of men for every five miles to keep the sleepers down and level in their beds as it is, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up again.

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow. As for work, we haven't any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire -- or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe" -- and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life -- I wrote this some years ago -- that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter -- we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure -- news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelve-month, or twelve years, beforehand with sufficient accuracy. As for Spain, for instance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta, and Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right proportions -- they may have changed the names a little since I saw the papers -- and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under this head in the newspapers: and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649; and if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French revolution not excepted.

What news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old! "Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms: What is your master doing? The messenger answered with respect: My master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of them. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: What a worthy messenger! What a worthy messenger!" The preacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest at the end of the week -- for Sunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new one -- with this one other draggle-tail of a sermon, should shout with thundering voice, "Pause! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly slow?"

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime. By closing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo book, that "there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. One of his father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul," continues the Hindoo philosopher, "from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme." I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that is which appears to be. If a man should walk through this town and see only the reality, where, think you, would the "Mill-dam" go to? If he should give us an account of the realities he beheld there, we should not recognize the place in his description. Look at a meeting-house, or a court-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what that thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to pieces in your account of them. Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or breakfast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry -- determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvium which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through Church and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.